"too much time on his hands", fuck any unthinking mother fucker who says this shit. Anyone who says this has too much time on his hands, because he's obviously not using it to do anything original.

26

Paul

08-10-2010

04:44 PM ET (US)

THANK YOU! I've always treated that comment as an insult and immediately counter-insulted with "so what have you done that's amazing?" Unsurprisingly, the commenter doesn't have anything to say.

25

Guy from South Carolina

08-10-2010

03:04 PM ET (US)

I have a friend that does not have a job. He is 28 years old, and still lives with his mother. He told me the other day that he had over 70 fantasy baseball teams that he has to manage and keep track of. I immediately said you have too much time on your hands.

Do you think this was harsh? Personally, I feel it was the most appropriate response to the situation. I cannot see anything productive in having that many fantasy baseball teams. But maybe it is just me?

24

@TheSandyWalsh

08-10-2010

10:03 AM ET (US)

Brilliant. I've had this said to me many times and every time it sickens me. Leave conformity to the many empty vessels out there.

23

jasony

01-05-2010

01:39 PM ET (US)

Cory, I think this is probably the best thing you've ever written (and you've written a lot of good stuff). Bravo!

22

Zed Lopez

02-06-2002

08:37 PM ET (US)

All this puts me in mind of Christopher Guest's "Waiting for Guffman" and "Best in Show," films which satirize their subjects' obsessions and dreams only a very little through exaggeration, and very much through simply too close a focus. Watching them makes me squirm in my seat a little, 'cause it's all too clear how easily the same could be done to writing science fiction, or any of a number of my passions (which I believe is Guest's explicit intent.)

21

chico haas

02-06-2002

03:24 AM ET (US)

Mr. Kindall's elegant thought was once explained to me with a minor spin. That painting and dance, specifically, were once necessary ways of communicating. And that once speech and writing were developed, these prior means were no longer vital for basic communication and so, as he said, were made into more elaborate, purely artful, forms of expression.

20

Greg

02-05-2002

10:17 PM ET (US)

Well said, Cory! People's compulsions and fasincations are interesting -- if not interesting to me in and of themselves, still interesting in terms of what they bring out in the other person.

19

Jerry Kindall

02-05-2002

04:08 PM ET (US)

Everything that is art has started out with someone doing something humans always do in the most elaborate way possible. People draw things to communicate; taken to the next level, it becomes art. We move; do it in a stylized manner, and it's dance. We use words to communicate information and history; formalize it and you're a novelist.

The difference between wasting time and creating art is usually just a hundred years or so...

18

Minnie

02-05-2002

02:39 AM ET (US)

Reclaim this vocabulary: focus.

I have yet to meet anyone whose eyes didn't glaze over when I shared a look through my collection. And then one friend, no more interested in my subject that any one else, listened to my embarrassed and short description of "what I'd been up to lately" (collecting) and exclaimed with delight: "See what happens when you focus!" She shared my pleasure in my little obsession without sharing my interest. What a joy to know friends like her.

17

bamdah

02-04-2002

11:12 PM ET (US)

You mean, if somebody spends all of his time composing ego enhancing opinion rants and posting them on an obscure web sit, we should give him some slack?....right??

16

dharmacowboy

02-04-2002

09:12 PM ET (US)

Amen Brother Cory, Amen. Can we get a group Amen for our brother?

AMEN

15

Ryan

02-04-2002

08:20 PM ET (US)

Well said, Cory. The one thing I've noticed about people who say "get a life" or "you have too much time on your hands" or my personal favorite, "you think too much" are all identically dull. Obsessed people are much more interesting.

14

Noel C.

02-04-2002

07:35 PM ET (US)

Great rant, but please note an even more vicious, and more common, phrasing of the same thing: "Get a life!"

13

McDonald

02-04-2002

01:21 PM ET (US)

I have noticed that mostly assholes use that term, when they're feeling uneasy and uncomfortable and don't know what else to say.